Rigonomics:

Last week I was invited by Assemblyman Van Tran to go on a fact-finding tour with the California National Guard to see the work our men and women in uniform have been doing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, cocaine and other contraband across our southern border. To say the least, I was very impressed by what was being done by our California Guards. What was really an eye opener was to realize that before the Guard was in place, there was really no substantial barrier between the U.S. and Mexico.

For most Americans who cross from Mexico to the U.S. at the Tijuana or Otay check point, all they see is high steel fences, concrete walls and a lot of Border Patrol personnel. What most of us do not realize is that for most of the border, until the Guard started building a secondary 16-foot fence, there was only an easily scalable 10-foot steel fence, between the U.S. and the millions of people who live just across the border in the Tijuana metropolitan area. The secondary fence is several hundred feet north of the primary fence.

With millions of people living right on the border, it is physically impossible to stop the flow of illegal immigrants without some physical barrier. Before the secondary fence was installed, the existing 10-foot fence proved to be only a minor speed bump for people crossing illegally into the U.S. The 12-plus million illegal immigrants in this country are a testament to how ineffective it was.

What we really had was a very sophisticated game of cat and mouse with our Border Patrol agents trying to stop the wave of people crossing California’s 157-mile border with Mexico. Many times a small group of illegals would act as if they were about to cross to draw the Border Patrol agents to them only to have another group cross where the agents just left. The secondary fence has put a stop to that.

Not only is the Guard building a proper fence but also an all-weather, high-speed access road between the two fences that allows our border agents to quickly get to any points of incursion along the border.

When the National Guard started the program called “Jump Start” 20 months ago, it was set up to help the Border Patrol get a jump start on controlling the border. President Bush and Congress had approved funding to add 6,000 additional border agents in 2006, but it takes 18 months to hire and fully train a border agent.